


Baby Be My Valentine

by Solia



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Baby love, F/M, Family, Family Fluff, MSR, The X-Files Revival, Valentine's Day, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 13:30:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17808854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Solia/pseuds/Solia
Summary: New parents Mulder and Scully have never observed Valentine's Day but with the arrival of their new baby, and all the challenges that come with newborns, they are prompted to reflect on what has brought them to where they are - and why they're so in love after all this time. Written for sportsnightnut as part of the X-Files Valentine Fanfic Exchange (2019)





	Baby Be My Valentine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sportsnightnut](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sportsnightnut/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don’t own The X-Files or any of the characters. 
> 
> Author’s notes: Happy Valentine’s Day, shippers! This story is written as a warm and loving gift for sportsnightnut as part of the X-Files Valentine’s Day Exchange hosted by OnlyTheInevitable, inspired by her prompt request for revival-era Mulder wanting to do something sweet for his girls on their first V-Day as a family. I interpreted it as both M & S wanting to show their affection for the other while also adjusting to life as new parents, which is magical but also hardly possible to manage by-the-book. I don’t normally write fluff but I hope very much hope you enjoy this short piece <3 Sorry for the terrible title, I am #TheWorst at naming fics. 
> 
> I always write to music, and I like to share what music inspired me while I wrote. Taylor Swift's 'New Grow Up' has the softness in the gentle strumming that I wanted to convey through the scenes of this fic, and the story being told in the lyrics about staying little and appreciating the innocence and magic of childhood speaks to the quiet joy I imagine M & S are enjoying in these early snapshots. "Your little hands wrapped around my finger /And it's so quiet in the world tonight /Your little eyelids flutter cause you're dreaming /So I tuck you in and turn on your favorite nightlight... Just never grow up." And 'God's Top Ten' by INXS, about Michael Hutchence, has such a deep intensity to its opening music. The lyrics repeatedly reference his love for his daughter, a theme infrequently dealt with in song, and I think it's such a beautiful thing to honour. I wanted to bring that feeling to this fic, how fiercely I imagine Mulder will love his little girl like he loves his Scully. "He's drifting with the stars /A lyric in his pocket /Little girl in his heart... Baby's got momma's eyes /She was always beautiful /When you hear his voice /Feel his arms around you."

He’s never paid much attention to the coming and going of consumerist-appointed ‘significant days’, but with the impending arrival of the baby, he’s got a new appreciation for marking things on calendars. Scans, showing that little bubble from the first ultrasound growing and growing. Appointments. Due date. He’s out late at night buying a jar of peanut butter and a packet of cheese and bacon crackers to satisfy Scully’s obscure cravings when the first hints of the upcoming calendar marker catch his attention. Just a small clue, but the first of many, he’s sure – a pink-and-red A4 sign taped to the closed door of a darkened café, suggesting patrons book early for Valentine’s Day. Initially he dismisses it, continuing across the parking lot to his car, but pauses with his hand on the handle. Scratches he hasn’t yet bothered to address from a car chase he’d rather forget run down the side panel of the expensive vehicle. It might have mattered to him except that things had gone from bad to worse to god-awful to learning that Scully was pregnant, and then nothing else mattered, because their love had endured, somehow, and their baby was on its way. A little bubble of wonder rising from the dark. He looks back up at the sign, feeling a rush of love and warmth for what he’s so damn grateful to have. He has lived the greatest love story ever told, and never marked it with special days, mostly because he never remembers them, and he knows she doesn’t care or mind. But now he’s living by that calendar hanging in their kitchen, so he can hardly forget. This year, he determines. This year he’s going to surprise her on Valentine’s Day. Dinner, flowers, presents, breakfast in bed, he’s not sure yet, but the possibilities are endless. She deserves it all.

His phone rings. “It’s me,” she says, unnecessarily. “My contractions have started. The baby’s coming.”

He can hardly contain his excitement as he throws the shopping bag into the passenger seat and starts the car, and only has the presence of mind to remember to stick to the speed limit on his way home. Valentine’s Day plans are swiftly forgotten in the blur of the next few days.

***

She’s never put much stock in Hallmark moments, societally designated gestures of romance and love that are generically reproduced from person to person, but with the arrival of the baby in a clean hospital room with her partner at her side and trained doctors and midwives all around instead of cultish onlookers, she’s got a new appreciation for ‘just normal’. Epidural. Beeping machines monitoring. Mulder’s hand in hers, his voice in her ear, coaching. Things she didn’t have the first time. Baby comes into the world pink and crying, just a touch smaller than William but reminding her heartbreakingly of her lost firstborn, especially when the precious bundle is nestled in her arms. Her tears stream down her face, and when Mulder presses yet another kiss to her hair, whispering exhausted elated nonsense about what a great job she’s done, she feels his tears, too. There is sadness here but so much love, _so much_ love, it’s almost sickening, and she chokes on a laugh that bubbles out of her. It’s their sappy Hallmark moment; after a love spanning twenty-five years, here they are finally in a typical, standard moment of family love just like anyone else’s. No aliens, no conspiracy, no case to make them question their reality, just them and this perfect manifestation of their partnership. It’s as generic as Valentine’s Day, she thinks, which is coming up, she knows. Mulder touches their infant’s soft hair with gentle, gentle fingers, and she feels a rush of love and warmth for what she’s so damn grateful to have. She’ll get him something for Valentine’s Day this year, she determines. A card, a gift, chocolates. It doesn’t matter that it’s sappy or whatever. He’s been by her side through all of this, and there’s no one she’d rather have. He deserves the recognition for being the wonderful partner he is.

The baby lifts delicate lashes to see the world for the first time, and she sees the world inside them, and all thoughts of Valentine’s Day are quickly banished in the euphoria of the moments that follow.

***

He might have forgotten but the internet does not. Stylised advertisements for preordered flowers and gifts slip unobtrusively into the page banners of mommy advice forums he’s almost too tired to read. Who is the target audience, exactly? Clearly not new dads so sleep-deprived they can’t even be trusted to enter their credit card details correctly to make a purchase. He skims past yet another ad, scrolling like you do when you’re reading except the words only soak in the wateriness of his eyes, rocking his wailing daughter.

“Silly online shops, Bub,” he croons, and his voice quietens her slightly. “Thinking your daddy has even the faintest clue what day it is. Look at this,” he adds, stopping on a large advertisement between two suggested answers to the forum and pointing to the computer screen. The baby sniffles and her cries soften to gentle grizzles. “This is called _wine_. It’s like milk, but for Daddy.” The infant cries louder and his heart sinks; he coddles her closer, jumping up to move around on sluggish legs, trying to give Scully more than half an hour of sleep between tearful and frustrating attempts to feed. “Shh, shh. My fault. Shouldn’t have said the _M_ word. Let’s talk about wine. Daddy would like some wine right about now.” He looks toward the doorway, hoping their girl hasn’t woken _his_ girl. “Want to hear a story about wine, Bubby?”

She responds well to the motion of his pacing and his low voice, noise dropping again and eyes fixing on his face over hers, so he keeps it up, because what else do you do?

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful warrior princess called Special Agent Scully,” he murmurs, rocking, rocking, eyelids drooping, hers and his. “She was everything a princess could want to grow to be – pretty, but _smart_ , so smart, and resourceful, and strong. She was secretly in love with a dashing rogue, and one day that dashing rogue rode to her castle with a bottle of wine for them to share. She opened the castle gates and let him join her for dinner, but little did she know, he wasn’t her dashing rogue at all. Nope,” he confirms when the baby blinks big eyes up at him, quitting her crying _finally_. He kisses her little nose. “It was a _villain_ , in disguise, trying to _trick_ the princess Agent Scully, a villain called Eddie Van Blundht the Terrible. The real dashing rogue was locked in a cupboard with only a sandwich, far away, worried about his warrior princess. But luckily,” he sweeps around to pace sluggishly back the other way across the living room, “he _escaped_ , and the first thing he did was run back to his princess and storm the castle, where he found the warrior princess Special Agent Scully and the villain Eddie Van Blundht the Terrible drinking wine together, with the villain just about to… let’s say _capture_ her. As soon as the warrior princess saw the real dashing rogue in the castle doorway she knew she’d been tricked, and together they vanquished that villain away to prison. And they lived happily ever after and drank wine together whenever they wanted to.” He turns again and the bright screen of the PC catches his attention, the wine subscription ad still dominating the screen. He cuddles the now-quiet baby closer to whisper to her. “What do you think? Should we get your warrior princess mommy some wine for Valentine’s Day? Help her relax? Remind her she’s perfect no matter what, that she’s smart and strong and resourceful and we love her the way she is?”

There’s a soft creak in the next room and he turns as Scully appears in the doorway, older now than in that memory and tireder but perfect, and beautiful, and smart and strong and resourceful and _his_.

“What are you telling our daughter?” she asks as she comes closer, stepping softly. “Top five hotspots to witness a UFO?”

“Talking about wine.” He bobs the baby gently and rhythmically in his arms as her mother runs fingers magnetically over downy soft hair you can’t help but touch, and as though drawn by the same magnetic force he leans forward to kiss Scully’s dishevelled hair. His girls, his whole heart split across two souls, here with him now. He lets her take the baby. “Trying again?”

“Maybe she’d prefer wine,” Scully half-jokes tiredly, settling on the armchair and nestling the mumbling infant on her lap while she opens her shirt with fumbling, exhausted, hopeless fingers. Her kneels in front of her, catching her fingers. Looking her in the eyes, fighting through the thick sense of failure gathering inside them like tears.

“She’ll eat,” he insists. “Maybe it won’t be the way you wanted, but she’ll eat, one way or the other, we’ll provide for her, and it’s got nothing to do with the quality of your parenting, alright?” He waits for her to nod, unconvincingly, but at least she’s heard his words and now they’re in there, dashing rogues battling the villainous thoughts laying siege to her castle of self-confidence. She’s a wonderful mother. Their baby is hungrier than her body can provide for. Valentine’s Day is forgotten again in the repetitive struggle to give Bubs her fill.

***

She might have forgotten but the shops do not. Stealthy snatches of pink and red rise at the edges of her exhausted awareness as she ghosts down the supermarket’s aisles looking for a product she’d convinced herself she wouldn’t need. Who do the supermarkets think they’re going to capture with their Valentine’s lead-up promotion? Clearly not new mothers who are _already here_ doing their groceries, with a whinging underfed newborn cradled in a baby carrier taking every atom of her attention day and night until day and night blend into one continuous grey hour, chipping away at her resilience and her sense of self. She idly runs her hand along the display of specialty greeting cards at the mouth of the next aisle.

“Look at all these anatomically incorrect hearts, Bubba,” she croons, swinging the carrier in an imitation of rocking, the whining pausing at the sound of her voice. “Attempts by marketing personnel to summarise the depth of love people feel for each other with coloured ink and paper derived from deforestation. Like a card could carry how much I love you and your dad,” she adds, turning the carrier to look upon their miracle, “even if you both drive me crazy. They haven’t made cards big enough or complicated enough yet. And you, little one, are shaping up to be every bit as complicated.” The baby, given a beautiful name they hardly use, stutters on a new cry, and she sighs, putting the carrier down to unbuckle her. “Shh, shh. It’s alright, little bubble. It’s alright. What about the hearts? Do you like the tacky pink and red hearts, hmm?” She waves one closer where tiny eyes can focus on the bright colours, and the cry softens. She scoops the baby up in aching arms and keeps waving the card like a rattle. “You like paper hearts? Your daddy and I found some of these, once.” She snuggles her baby closer, putting the card back on the shelf, protective at the memory, and grateful to have what she has. “It’s a sad story about precious little girls just like you who got taken away from their mommies by monsters. One monster hid them, but your daddy is a hero, because he helped catch that monster before he could hurt anyone else, even though it hurt Daddy to do it. Our world isn’t very nice sometimes,” she admits to her daughter as she picks the carrier back up in the crook of her elbow and starts down the empty aisle again. It must be late, there’s hardly anyone here. “But we’re lucky, because in that world we have wonderful people like your daddy and other men and women who go to work to protect the rest of us. People who choose your safety over their own needs.” She looks back down the aisle over her shoulder with stinging eyes that can’t remember sleep; Mulder and his trolley are not in sight, but she still drops her voice to whisper to their baby. “That’s what your daddy did. He saved that little girl even though he wanted to ask that monster where your aunty was hidden, and all he had left was a little cut-out of a heart. Because it was the noble thing to do, and because a little life is worth a thousand ghosts or more.” She presses a kiss to the fussing baby’s soft forehead. “What do you think? Should we get Daddy a card to change his mind about paper hearts? To remind him the whole world’s not on his shoulders, and we love him already for all he is?”

The squeak of a trolley rounds the corner ahead of her and Mulder appears, older now than in that memory and tireder, but perfect, and beautiful, and noble and heroic and _hers_.

“What are you telling our daughter?” he asks as he strolls closer, making room in the large trolley for the empty baby carrier. “The best points for incision when conducting brain surgery?”

“Talking about hearts.” She sits the newborn up as the father brushes the back of his hand along soft little arms as though he can’t help himself from making contact with her, and drawn by the same adoring need she takes his other hand in hers. Her loves, her little family, all she needs split across two perfect souls, here with her in the now. She lets him take the baby. “What did you find?”

“Next aisle,” he says, and they trail back there with no haste. The baby formula is stacked high and laden with judgement she can feel vibrating in the air around every can, through the loudest words in baby help forums and mother’s groups and the firm advice of friends and staff at the hospital. Breast is best. You want your baby to thrive, don’t you? No advice for what happens when an older mother can’t produce enough to feed her child, or her child won’t take to the natural means of feeding. William didn’t need formula supplement this young – she feels like a disappointment. Mulder’s hand tightens on hers, reminding her of what they talked about.

“Let’s get our baby something to eat,” she determines, starting to take cans down from the shelves to read the ingredients and specifics. “She has to like _something_.” She feels his smile and feels reassured to have him at her back while she deals with this obstacle. Monsters come in all shapes, hairy and clawed and slimy and extra-terrestrial and human and authoritarian and shadowy, and societal judgement is no different, but whatever the monster, she knows her partner is the only man she’d want to face them with. They’ve faced everything together. Let parenthood and other women’s opinions just try them. Valentine’s Day is forgotten again in the exhausted, hopeful selection process.

***

Birth certificate be damned – they spent untold hours crafting the perfect name for their daughter before she came into the world, but they might as well have not bothered. Bub becomes Bubba and after two weeks it’s Bubbles, and nothing’s more perfect than that.

“Hungry?” he asks, pressing the teat of the bottle to cupid lips smacking in anticipation. The baby sucks greedily, and he settles back in the loveseat on the porch, Scully nuzzling warmly against him under the blanket. She dreamily fidgets with miniscule fingers against his chest, so much calmer now that their baby is provided for. Because damn what anyone else says; there are a thousand paths through parenthood and this is what’s right for their baby. Besides, he keeps telling her, we didn’t get where we are by following the beaten path against our own instincts. Bubbles drinks and drinks and drinks and by the time he’s setting the empty bottle aside, her mother’s fallen asleep on his shoulder. So he’s careful not to jostle her as he shifts the baby to burp her on his other shoulder.

Bubbles hiccoughs. Manages to keep the milk down.

“Close one,” he warns her softly, continuing to pat the bubbles out of her pipes. He looks aside at the exhausted new mother passed out against him. “Look at your mommy, would you? Isn’t she beautiful when she sleeps?” He’s rushed with warm memories of his partner falling asleep in the car on stakeouts, drifting off on his couch while they watched old films, breathing softly in motel rooms beside his. He drops his voice to murmur conspiratorially to their daughter. “You know what, though. Right when she falls asleep, that’s when something _big_ is going to go down. She always misses it, any proof I might not be crazy. Look up at the sky,” he urges, though little newborn eyes aren’t built to focus that far, “and you’ll see a flying saucer streaking past like a shooting star. Look at mommy’s little garden down there and you’ll see fairies. Look at the road there, going past our house. Now that she’s not looking, you’ll see Bigfoot, trudging through the snow. The world’s full of wonder, my baby girl,” he adds, turning his head tightly to kiss the back of her tiny head with all the love he’s got. “Your mommy doesn’t always see what I see but it’s only real because she’s with me. Because she believes in me, regardless of what else she believes. Find someone who follows you through the world and loves you for all your crazy.”

He turns his wrist to look at the time, and the date flashes up. The tenth. Wow, time is flying.

“It’s a special day this week,” he confides in his baby. “Should we get something special for our warrior princess to show her how much we appreciate her? After all, she puts up with my crazy.” He whispers into their baby’s ear. “You’ll be crazy like your daddy, won’t you, Bub? Spooky Bubbles? Your poor mother. Let’s get her something to ease her into… Oh, Bub.”

Bubbles spasms once and throws up a mouthful of warm formula down his back. Scully is jerked awake. Any romantic thoughts of shopping for his sweetheart are banished in the clean-up efforts.

***

A rose by any other name is still a rose, don’t they say? And their baby is still all the things they hoped to emulate with their careful choice of name, but they hardly use it. Three weeks in, it’s exclusively Bubbles, and it rolls off the tongue without thought.

“Hungry?” she asks rhetorically, because their baby always is, and she offers the warm bottle to a ready mouth. She’s an expert at eating by now, and thriving perfectly on a mixed diet just like the more balanced voices in help forums and mothers groups promised, because every baby’s different and she’s got to do what’s best for her as a mother for her own baby. Like Mulder said. He shifts on the wide couch, idly changing the channel, and lays down with his head on her lap beside the baby where he can reach up and touch her tiny toes. The baby ignores her father and drinks and drinks and drinks and by the time the bottle’s done, there are soft snores rising from her lap and they’re not coming from the baby. So she’s careful not to wake him as she pats their daughter on the back.

Bubbles burps and gurgles on the spit; her mother leans her back to wipe her face.

“If you throw it up, it’s gone,” she warns her gently, then puts her back on her shoulder, adjusting the towel beneath her. She looks down at the tired-out new father asleep in her lap. “Just look at your daddy. He looks peaceful when he sleeps, doesn’t he? Maybe the only time he’s not burning through a million thoughts and problems at once in that beautiful head of his.” She’s rushed with warm memories of her partner puzzling at his desk in their basement office, chewing sunflower seeds, half-watching old monster films and soft porn to try to distract enough of his brain to give him room to think. She drops her voice to keep her words just between her and her daughter. “But you know something about your dad? When he looks like he’s ignoring you and a thousand miles away, he’s really _right there_ with you, thinking about everything at once. How to solve a problem for you, how to keep you safe, how to answer your question. He can drift but he’s never far away. He’s tethered to us like a kite. When he loves you most of all, he doesn’t need to say it – you know because he drops _everything_ for you without a word. And he loves you most of all, my baby girl.” She turns her head to press her lips against her daughter’s head, smelling that sweet new baby smell. So new, so pure, so precious. “You are so loved. You’re going to know what it is to be the centre of the universe. And when you go out into the world, you’re going to remember what that felt like and know when you feel it again. Find someone who takes on the world with you and has your back at every turn, and don’t listen when the world says they’re insane, or a dreamer, or wrong or _spooky_ – you’ll know who’s wrong when you’ve got love like that.”

She presses the button on her phone beside her to light up the screen, and the date catches her attention. The thirteenth. The days are slipping away from them like sand between the fingers.

“It’s a significant day tomorrow,” she tells her baby. “Should we get a present for your hero of a dad to make sure he knows how much we love him? We can thank him for supporting Mommy through _everything_ , no matter how difficult, no matter what the universe throws at us.” She strokes their baby’s soft hair. “There’s nothing he needs but we can visit the shops in the morning… Oh, no, Bubby, it’s alright.”

Bubbles chokes briefly on another burp and disturbs herself, bursting into fresh wails. Mulder jerks upright, delirious. Any further plans for secret shopping the next day are lost to the tedium of calming the baby’s cries.

***

Without a calendar, no day looks any different than the last, and calendar-appointed days of significance dawn the same as all the others, without ceremony.

Unless you count the morning cries of a new baby.

Both parents groan and squeeze aching eyes shut for a moment’s reprieve.

“It’s my turn, I’ll go.”

“No, it’s my turn. Just… one second.”

One second passes. Another. Bubbles continues to grizzle in the next room. Hands draw together in the middle of the bed, unspoken, and twine briefly.

“Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“Happy Valentine’s Day to you, too.”

“I didn’t get you anything.”

“Shocking. I didn’t get anything, either.”

“I thought about it. I was going to do something this year.”

“Me too. Our first Valentine’s Day with Bubbles.”

They both listen as their baby wails. One of them gets up to collect the infant, who settles as soon as she’s held, and she’s brought back to the bedroom. Kneeling together in the messy white sheets with their baby girl between them at dawn, the world is quiet and grey and there’s no sign of pink or red or paper hearts or bottles of wine. Any monsters or judgements or heartaches or distractions are so, so far away, and all that’s here is perfection. Breath. Love. Foreheads dip to touch. Hands brush. No words. Just love, timeless, endless, their past and their future tied into their perfect present.

“I didn’t expect anything,” one whispers, it doesn’t matter which, “and I don’t want anything. Everything I need is right here.”

“I was going to say the same thing. Thank you. For everything.”

She smiles.

He smiles.

And maybe it’s a reflex or maybe it’s just good timing, but Bubbles, staring up at her parents and in the glow of their love, smiles her first smile. A brief shimmer, one neither parent misses. The perfect gift money could not have bought, and no card could have conveyed.

“Something to put on the calendar,” Mulder whispers to Scully, cupping her ear with his hand, fingers tangling in unbrushed red hair, to draw her close. She rises on her knees, and they meet in the middle, with their everything cradled in between.


End file.
